“She said no boy was worth it. But she didn’t know. She didn’t understand. She’d never met you.”
“Me?” Jonathan whispered through a clenching throat. “What in the hell does this have to do with me?”
“I love you, of course,” Kirsty said. She walked past him to the desk and set the mugs down. “I told you, we’re a lot alike. I knew it from the first moment I saw you.”
“We’re nothing alike,” Jonathan said. “I could never…Jesus, you killed all of those people.”
“I did it for us,” Kirsty said. “You needed to find your power before you could accept mine.”
“I don’t accept anything.”
“When I saw you, I felt we were the same. I’ve always had the talent, met other girls and a few women that can wield it, but you’re the first gifted boy I’ve met.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will,” Kirsty said.
She walked up to him, and Jonathan tried to back away. The contents of Kirsty’s closet kept him from retreating farther. Her hands snaked out, palms sliding up his chest like serpents.
“Your old life is gone, Jonathan. Even David. You don’t have anyone but me.”
Jonathan thought about his best friend and felt sick. He should have known David wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. It was Kirsty. Always Kirsty.
“Just accept it,” she said, her lips spreading into a dreamy smile. “Together we can do anything. We can have anything we want. I could do it on my own, but it would be so much better together. No one can hurt us. You know it’s true. I showed you.”
“Emma never did a thing to me, and she certainly never hurt you.”
“David told me how you felt about her the first time he called. She was a problem. A problem I intend to solve when all of this is done.”
“You’re sick.”
Kirsty’s eyes grew dark. Her smile disappeared to be replaced by a ragged smirk.
“Maybe,” she said, removing her hands from him and stepping away. “But I spent sixteen years playing a sniveling victim. I believed every bitch that called me ugly and said I was nothing. I believed my father when he called me a disgrace, a disappointment. And I believed my mother when she told me I needed to get used to the world’s cruelty. I believed all of that until I discovered the Talent. Once I did, I proved them wrong. And then I saw you. So much like I was a year ago. Unpopular. Unattractive. Unwanted. But under the surface, I saw this well of power you had no idea existed.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Jonathan said. “You have to stop this. You’re killing people.”
“They deserve to die.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Oh, come on, Jonathan. You’re telling me you never thought about killing those assholes? You did think it. I know you did.”
“It doesn’t matter what I
“Wrong,” Kirsty said. “Gods and goddesses act on them. Monsters are merely their weapons.” She walked to the desk and lifted the stained picture of Jonathan from its surface. She held it over the lip of the pewter goblet. “You want to meet my monsters?”
“Do what you want,” Jonathan said. “Like you said, I’ve got nothing left. God knows, anything’s better than being with you. I’d say your father had the right idea, leaving you.”
“Do you really think he left?” Kirsty asked. “After all of this, do you honestly believe I just let him walk away? The only place he went was to a morgue and then to an oven to roast his damned skin to ashes.”
“Well, it’s got to be better than seeing your ugly face every single day.”
“You son of a bitch!” Kirsty screamed. “No one talks to me like that. NO ONE!”
She dropped the photograph into the goblet and stepped back. She lifted one hand to her chest and recited an incantation.
To Jonathan it sounded like
Only then could he act. He’d goaded her, wanting her to perform the spell. He still held the picture of Kirsty in his hand. If he could exchange it for the image of himself in the goblet, her Reapers might be fooled into taking her. It was a long shot, but he knew of no other way to bring an end to this nightmare.
Jonathan ran toward the desk. Kirsty looked startled for a moment, but recovered quickly. She flashed out her hand and raked her fingernails down his face. The pain slowed Jonathan, but it wasn’t until she buried her knee in his crotch that he stopped.
He dropped to his knees. Pain like he’d never known exploded through his body, radiating from between his legs with such ugly force, he thought he might vomit. His head blossomed with colors, each one representing a different level of agony. He slumped forward, clutching himself and gasping for breath.
“Idiot,” Kirsty whispered. “You’ve ruined everything.”
Jonathan groaned. His eyes were covered in greasy tears, blurring his vision, but he blinked the moisture away. Behind him he heard Kirsty walking to the other side of the room.
“I loved you,” she said. “And this is how you treat me? I loved YOU!”
He managed to roll over and see the girl standing in the far corner of the room. “You call this love?” Jonathan asked.
“No,” Kirsty muttered. “I call this…over.”
The Reapers appeared in the doorway then. They did not pause, but soared into the room. Three of them pushed through the door and unfolded to their full size. They danced in the air above him like circling manta rays, wearing grins on their transparent faces. One swooped down and grazed his aching body with its cold, wet form. Another repeated the move, only this one connected hard with Jonathan’s shoulder, sending him onto his back.
The third one dropped to the floor. It crept over Jonathan’s head, leaving a moist trail on his hair and skin. He struggled, threw his hands up to pull the phantom off of him, but it was too strong. A moment later his nose and mouth were covered. He beat at it, tore at it with his fingernails, but the phantom was already lifting him off the floor.
Through the film of the shadowy body, Jonathan watched his own hands flail as he rose off of the carpet. The picture of Kirsty, a rectangular blur, flapped in the air, still held firmly between his fingers. His chest heaved for breath, but the ghost’s form filled his nose, his mouth. His pulse thundered like drums in his ears. His heart beat like a speeding train, trying to break through his ribs. Up and up. The phantom lifted him from the floor and dragged him to the ceiling. Another of the Reapers wrapped around his legs.
Together the two monsters carried him around the room. They beat him against the ceiling, then dropped to the floor, skimming over the carpet.
Jonathan’s head grew light. His body began to hitch violently as his lungs struggled to draw breath. White flashes appeared in his vision, playing against the dark field covering his eyes.
In a final attempt to save his own life, Jonathan threw out his hand, reached for anything he could get his fingers on. He was helpless in midair. If he could get on his feet, get some control of any kind…
He felt wood scrape over his chest and arms. He was being lifted by his feet, dangling upside down. He desperately reached out, and the edge of the desk slid into his palm. He held on with all of his might.
The phantoms continued to climb, and a searing agony flared at Jonathan’s shoulder. It felt like his arm would rip out of the socket. But he held on.
Through the shade of the Reaper’s body, he saw the goblet on the desk’s surface. More lights flashed before his eyes, and his torso clenched miserably. He needed air. Needed it right now.
A low ringing filled his ears. His eyes stung from the secretions on the surface of the ghost, but he could see the goblet. He saw his face looking up at him from it.
Jonathan reached down. He dropped Kirsty’s picture in the cup. With his fingers freed of it, he yanked his picture from the foul liquid. He flung it to the floor, and suddenly the grip on his feet was gone and he was falling.
The cowl lifted from his mouth, his nose, his eyes. Jonathan gasped, taking in gulps of sweet air, filling his desperate lungs with oxygen as his mind spun out of control like a broken carnival ride. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, expecting to see the Reapers regrouping above him, but they didn’t appear.
